D&D General WotC’s Official Announcement About Diversity, Races, and D&D

Following up on recent discussions on social media, WotC has made an official announcement about diversity and the treatment of ‘race’ in D&D. Notably, the word ‘race’ is not used; in its place are the words ‘people’ and 'folk'.

 PRESS RELEASE

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Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is strength, for only a diverse group of adventurers can overcome the many challenges a D&D story presents. In that spirit, making D&D as welcoming and inclusive as possible has moved to the forefront of our priorities over the last six years. We’d like to share with you what we’ve been doing, and what we plan to do in the future to address legacy D&D content that does not reflect who we are today. We recognize that doing this isn’t about getting to a place where we can rest on our laurels but continuing to head in the right direction. We feel that being transparent about it is the best way to let our community help us to continue to calibrate our efforts.

One of the explicit design goals of 5th edition D&D is to depict humanity in all its beautiful diversity by depicting characters who represent an array of ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, and beliefs. We want everyone to feel at home around the game table and to see positive reflections of themselves within our products. “Human” in D&D means everyone, not just fantasy versions of northern Europeans, and the D&D community is now more diverse than it’s ever been.

Throughout the 50-year history of D&D, some of the peoples in the game—orcs and drow being two of the prime examples—have been characterized as monstrous and evil, using descriptions that are painfully reminiscent of how real-world ethnic groups have been and continue to be denigrated. That’s just not right, and it’s not something we believe in. Despite our conscious efforts to the contrary, we have allowed some of those old descriptions to reappear in the game. We recognize that to live our values, we have to do an even better job in handling these issues. If we make mistakes, our priority is to make things right.

Here’s what we’re doing to improve:

• We present orcs and drow in a new light in two of our most recent books, Eberron: Rising from the Last War and Explorer's Guide to Wildemount. In those books, orcs and drow are just as morally and culturally complex as other peoples. We will continue that approach in future books, portraying all the peoples of D&D in relatable ways and making it clear that they are as free as humans to decide who they are and what they do.
• When every D&D book is reprinted, we have an opportunity to correct errors that we or the broader D&D community discovered in that book. Each year, we use those opportunities to fix a variety of things, including errors in judgment. In recent reprintings of Tomb of Annihilation and Curse of Strahd, for example, we changed text that was racially insensitive. Those reprints have already been printed and will be available in the months ahead. We will continue this process, reviewing each book as it comes up for a reprint and fixing such errors where they are present.
• Later this year, we will release a product (not yet announced) that offers a way for a player to customize their character’s origin, including the option to change the ability score increases that come from being an elf, a dwarf, or one of D&D's many other playable folk. This option emphasizes that each person in the game is an individual with capabilities all their own.
• Curse of Strahd included a people known as the Vistani and featured the Vistani heroine Ezmerelda. Regrettably, their depiction echoes some stereotypes associated with the Romani people in the real world. To rectify that, we’ve not only made changes to Curse of Strahd, but in two upcoming books, we will also show—working with a Romani consultant—the Vistani in a way that doesn’t rely on reductive tropes.
• We've received valuable insights from sensitivity readers on two of our recent books. We are incorporating sensitivity readers into our creative process, and we will continue to reach out to experts in various fields to help us identify our blind spots.
• We're proactively seeking new, diverse talent to join our staff and our pool of freelance writers and artists. We’ve brought in contributors who reflect the beautiful diversity of the D&D community to work on books coming out in 2021. We're going to invest even more in this approach and add a broad range of new voices to join the chorus of D&D storytelling.

And we will continue to listen to you all. We created 5th edition in conversation with the D&D community. It's a conversation that continues to this day. That's at the heart of our work—listening to the community, learning what brings you joy, and doing everything we can to provide it in every one of our books.

This part of our work will never end. We know that every day someone finds the courage to voice their truth, and we’re here to listen. We are eternally grateful for the ongoing dialog with the D&D community, and we look forward to continuing to improve D&D for generations to come.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But why are orcs always the evil minion fodder unless they're somehow disposed to being evil? If they are wired to be evil, what difference does the degree of evil matter? If their nature is to be more evil* than humans, don't we have the same problem?

*Evil/angry/prone to violence whatever.

Because the dark lord wants them to be, and mortals aren't as strong as dark lords, generally. The minions could as easily be humans, and the adventure wouldn't change. Why would I worry about killing fantasy nazis just because they look like me? They're fantasy nazis! Kill them.

But again, this whole topic isn't ever going to be about your home game or mine. It's about what is and should be in the books. And the books shouldn't shoehorn a commonly desired as playable race into always evil, particularly in ways that are reminiscent of real world racist rhetoric.

But that's the thing. The majority of humans needed to make cities in order to protect themselves.

Lizardfolk don't make cities because they would hamper their abilities instead of complimenting them. They swim a lot better and faster than humans do (granting them underwater mobility) and breathe underwater.

How the heck does barricading themselves in four walls benefits them in any way?

What's next? Asking druids to live inside metal domes?

To be fair, they could easily build cities that take advantage of their natural advantages. They know about cities. Having walls and other fortifactions doesn't stop them from using canals instead of roads, and building their cities to be dense with foliage that will climb up structures to give them many places to hide and ambush intruders.

In fact, one could easily build a "swamp" that is actually a city, that outsiders just don't realize is a city.

For rethorical purposes, you are describing this whole depiction of Orcs as a gaffe made against PoC. But your metaphore is not completely adherent, for me. Description of Orc is something completely disjointed by PoC in the intention and purpose, and it is by a complaint made by PoC if this is now consider a gaffe. So to adjust the metaphore we should say: I built a table putting it in a very safe place and somebody, clumsily hit it harming his feet. So, I have to beg his pardon?

Ah, I see. You just wanna blame the victim.

Done with you.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Now that you mention it the D&D Live map does mention other Orc Tribes with The Tribes of Many-Arrows being the strongest. So I still think reformation is on the table.

But yeah after this I hope they never go back to status qua with resetting thier place in the world. It's so boring to throw away story development.

I STILL cannot get over how many times Marvel & DC comics did that. One more day still causes me angst.

my greatest and only wish for DC is a "day one" reboot, no canon kept, no guarantees, just a complete and total restart. First few months at least of issues only feature 5-8 heroes, only introduce 1-2 villains, and by the end of year one you maybe have an agreement to found a league of heroes, but you don't have the JL yet. Only sidekick in year one would be Robin, and he wouldn't come in until several issues in, as Bruce is getting too caught up in punching muggers and losing the plot on his mission while also having a hard time keeping hold of his own identity, as a clarifying and humanising influence.

 

[Panda-s1]

my greatest and only wish for DC is a "day one" reboot, no canon kept, no guarantees, just a complete and total restart. First few months at least of issues only feature 5-8 heroes, only introduce 1-2 villains, and by the end of year one you maybe have an agreement to found a league of heroes, but you don't have the JL yet. Only sidekick in year one would be Robin, and he wouldn't come in until several issues in, as Bruce is getting too caught up in punching muggers and losing the plot on his mission while also having a hard time keeping hold of his own identity, as a clarifying and humanising influence.

man I don't even read comics and that sounds awesome. have they really not done that already? I guess as a complete reboot maybe not, huh.

 

[Haldrik]

There seems to be a weird trope emerging in some of the posts, as if:

• Bureaucratic urban peoples = Good
• Tribal nomadic peoples = Evil

Of course, the above bifurcation would be offensive racism.


So, with regard to Orc cultures that tend toward Good, they may or may not be Good tribal nomads.
With regard to Orc cultures that tend toward Evil, they may or may not be Evil bureaucratic urbans.

Same thing goes for humans, elves, hobgoblins, etcetera.

 

[Zardnaar]

There seems to be a weird trope emerging in some of the posts, as if:

• Bureaucratic urban peoples = Good
• Tribal nomadic peoples = Evil

Of course, the above bifurcation would be offensive racism.


So, with regard to Orc cultures that tend toward Good, they may or may not be Good tribal nomads.
With regard to Orc cultures that tend toward Evil, they may or may not be Evil bureaucratic urbans.

Same thing goes for humans, elves, hobgoblins, etcetera.

It's a trope going back a long long time.

Probably back to when humans started farming in river valleys. You draw a line in the sand aka a border. Very quickly becomes them and us.

 

[Mirtek]

Now that you mention it the D&D Live map does mention other Orc Tribes with The Tribes of Many-Arrows being the strongest. So I still think reformation is on the table.

But yeah after this I hope they never go back to status qua with resetting thier place in the world. It's so boring to throw away story development.

I STILL cannot get over how many times Marvel & DC comics did that. One more day still causes me angst.

Well, during the hundredsomething years that the kingdom lastet, there have been political marriages between orcish and non-orcish (mostly human) nobles. So you still could play a half-orc with the noble background from one of the neighouring northern kingdoms

 

[Teemu]

I agree that the art for orcs (I prefer green skin/3.5 depiction) and wording for orcs could/should be fixed. I think Volo's "if an orc is domesticated they might not be completely evil" is ... well let's just say problematic.

Given all of that, what role do orcs play if they are not evil? Because in my campaigns they're an existential threat to society. Similar to zombies in a sense, except of course they are intelligent. An orc isn't interested in conquering to simply gain more resources, they want to annihilate humans, dwarves and especially elves because that's what Gruumsh created them for. Their entire purpose in life to destroy according to the lore from the MM.

Without that, what do they become other than just another costume?

Eberron generally takes the approach that race doesn't equal culture. Orcs in the settings have various roles depending on which culture group you're looking at.

The most high-profile of Eberron's orc cultures are the orcs of the Shadow Marches. These orcs can be druidic protectors of the natural world, followers of strange and dangerous cults, or even people who're working for the "oil boom" industry of the region ("nouveau riche" type of thing).

To the east of Shadow Marches is Droaam, the so-called nation of monsters. Droaam is a harsh land ruled by monstrous warlords who gather together various groups of monstrous peoples (goblinoids, orcs, kobolds, ogres, harpies, minotaurs, trolls, etc.). The orcs of Droaam are not a unified culture but more defined by the warlord they follow. There's no orc region in Droaam, but instead there are orcs living together with many other monstrous folks.

The Demon Wastes is a very harsh supernatural wasteland where a culture of orcs has been fighting the demons of the land for countless generations. They channel a supernatural force that can bind this demonic evil, so they're essentially an orc culture of paladins/clerics that fight demons.

There are also orc tribes at war in the mountainous dwarven homeland. They'd be closest to the standard D&D orcs who live in tribes and who are hostile to outsiders.

So, as you can see, you could easily have many different types of orc cultures in a D&D world without making them all the same bloodthirsty marauders. The one thing that unifies all these orc cultures is that in Eberron orcs are "passionate" and are typically drawn to the mystic side of the world, hence all the druids and paladins and cults.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Now that you mention it the D&D Live map does mention other Orc Tribes with The Tribes of Many-Arrows being the strongest. So I still think reformation is on the table.

But yeah after this I hope they never go back to status qua with resetting thier place in the world. It's so boring to throw away story development.

I STILL cannot get over how many times Marvel & DC comics did that. One more day still causes me angst.

I wish WotC would make a starter set, 1st to 5th level, ala Dragon Heist where the players are mostly orcs, half-orcs and human exiles from the Many-Arrows tribes. The gimmick of the campaign, instead of ''your pick 1 season and it will decide who's the end boss'', would be ''pick a new land for your people and it will decide who's the end boss''. You start by assembling your tribe, ala Banner Saga, and have a long travel before arriving to the chosen place (instead of the faction jobs part of DH).

The new lands would be:

• An ancient eladrin city in a forest, abandoned in the Prime, but its reflect in the Feywild he's still occupied by eladrins forces.
• A desert canyon full of tinkitali (the scorpion dudes) lead by a Medusa.
• A coastal area caught between to warring factions in a civil war.
• The mountain necropolis of stone giants mummies.

 

[Guest 6801328]

So violence instigated by the bad guy can never be depicted? [EDIT] As @MGibster Villains can't be villainous?

Except he's not a villain. He's supposed to be a virtuous hero, her One True Love.

And yet, in order to find out if she still loves him, he's willing to terrorize her.

Let me think...no, I'm not ok with that messaging.

 

[Anathema]

Also, I shouldn't have to point out how fundamentally flawed it is to argue that since WoTC put out human representations of color, then "they already did everything" and somehow that magically means that all of the associations between orcs/drow/black people went instantly away.

A few observations.

I joined the Forum to respond to this thread, not because of you or your post. I could have chosen any post that had the same subject and/or trail of thoughts, but yours stated most clearly exactly what I am not on par with. Don't flatter yourself And to be quite honest, even though I can't see or hear you, the way how you worded your reply to my post somehow shows me that I struck a nerve and that you are in need of relaxing a little bit, after all Btw. @Elfcrusher : What do you mean by "that crowd"? Sounds to me like an insult.

With "any rational person" I mean any person that is rational enough to understand that there is a difference between a fantasy world and fantastic creatures and human beings. Whoever is NOT able to see a difference there, has already proven herself (avoiding sexism here) unfit for an objective conversation. Because if you start to go in the direction that drow or orcs are to be mistaken as humans, then the whole concept of a fantasy world is going down the drain. Are dwarves, gnomes and halflings racist depictions of real-life humans of a smaller stature? Do you think someone like Peter Dinklage is offended by the concept of a halfling or gnome as they make it look like all people with a shorter stature have a tendancy towards thievery or trickery?

I think that it is completely stupid to assume any HUMAN BEING with dark skin is naturally evil. Wizards of the Coast evolved over the past decades and with them they evolved their depiction of human beings. And it is a good evolution, I really celebrate the depiction of a black female as an example for a human being. THIS is where they should put more emphasize in.

But Elves, Orcs, Halflings and so on are NOT human beings and I just can't bring myself to see anything else in them, than what they are, white or not: Fantastical creatures. If you think of fantastical creatures otherwise than just as that, then you are in my opinion part of the problem rather than the solution. "...and somehow that magically means that all of the associations between orcs/drow/black people went instantly away" => It did not magically vanish, it just never was there for me and neither should it have been a way of thinking for any decent person. If you think orcs or drow are depictions of black people, you are an naughty word. Full-stop. I do not even for one second let anyone tell me that a black person in real life is anything like an orc or a drow. I believe that there might be people out there, finding this funny or thinking that they are, but I repeat myself: Whoever thinks that orcs or drow are the fantasy depictions of black human beings in real life, is a god-damned naughty word and should be by forbidden to EVER play any RPG ever again.

Killing the term race in the context of elves, humans, halflings etc. now seems at first like another step in the right direction. But to be quite honest: If you start thinking of the other races as something different than another RACE OF CREATURE (like a giraffe or a shark) then you are RAISING THE PROBLEM you want to solve in the first place. As long as an elf is another race then it does not matter if it has black, brown, orange, blue (what about aquatic elves? Racist or not?) or red skin. It is an elf and if the white elf is naturally evil it is not more racist than if the red-skinned or black-skinned one is. It is just a "monster". Yes, one you can play, but so are Dragonborn and Tieflings. Especially the latter are described to be tending towards evil, even though they are not born evil. So what I am saying is: Only if you are killing the word "race" and put Orcs and Drow and Elves and Halflings etc. on the same page as humans, you are CREATING the ground for a discussion about racism in their depiction. And it is creating even more problems, because @Sadras is right: Where do we stop, if we start making orcs and drow reflections of real-life human beings?

No, sorry, for me this whole thing is a good intention, but as we all know the road to hell is paved with good intentions. They should put more effort, as I said, in furthering the diversity and equality in the HUMAN part of the worlds: I have a TON of novels and rulebooks from the Forgotten Realms and there is a massive lack of PoC as (good) Archmages, Kings, Heroes, epic characters in there. Or have a look at the Faiths and Pantheons Rulebook and the depiction of the Faerunian deities. There are so much better ways to further diversity in the lore of the game than by trying to make orcs and drow black human derivatives. I find it questionable to try lowering real-life stereotypes in DnD by making the association of black people from real life and evil monsters in a fantasy world firstly canon and then trying to change the characteristics of those evil monsters so they are not furthering stereotypes you yourself created by assuming they are in any way equivalent.